All of the sudden we have approached the final leg of the summer journey with the dog days of August now in full gear, and the fall season well within an earshot. Of course the eighth month of the year is a prime vacation period, and many in our midst are preparing to travel. The baseball season playoffs are beginning to take some kind of shape, and as a Yankees fan I am most pleased with the way things are developing. The summer school program I have been teaching since late June ends this coming Friday, August 7th, leaving a bit more than three weeks for a summer respite. Lucille also has approximately the same time off until she reports back in near the end of the month.

The Childhood/Adolescent Films Countdown continues to move forward most impressively as the half way point has nearly been reached. The page views and comment totals are quite fine, and as always first-class writing has been published by numerous bloggers. I want to thank everyone involved for their quality submissions on every front. The project will continue into October.

Lucille and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday (July 29) by taking in the new Broadway musical Amazing Grace, which was staged at the Nederlander Theater on 41st Street off Seventh Avenue. Unfortunately this highly derivative work (Les Miserables) showcased a weak and unmemorable score and nothing special in the “book” department. The sets and the performances though were fine enough. We had a better time having dinner at the Red Lobster right around the corner. Certainly a memorable evening regardless of what we thought of the show.

On Monday night we watched COURT at the Film Forum, meeting up with our longtime friend Kaleem Hasan. The film, an unapologetic indictment of the Indian judicial system, rates a solid grade. Once again I rewatched some blu rays and DVDs, a few attached to the countdown:

Court **** (Monday night) Film Forum

At-home viewing:

Small Change (L’Argent de Poche; 1976) **** 1/2

No Greater Glory (1934) *****

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) **** 1/2

The Third Man (1949) ***** (new 4K restoration)

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) *****

Our very good friend and master-class film and music writer Stephen Mullen (Weeping Sam) has offered up a tremendous editorial at The Listening Ear on the killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe by the now in-hiding Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer:

Cecil the Lion: this has been dominating the internet lately – a famous lion on a wildlife reservation in Zimbabwe was lured off the preserve and shot by an American dentist called Walter Palmer who paid $50,000+ to kill a lion. International outrage follows. Palmer’s dental practice is chased out of business in short order by internet abuse and real life protests. Well – he deserves it. It’s hard to fathom the awfulness of this person – flying around the world to kill rare animals for fun, at least some of the time breaking the law to do it; and then look at the way he immediately blamed his guides when he got caught! A real class guy.

It really is an awful story – I just don’t get it at all. I understand hunting – I don’t have any interest in it myself, never did, but I grew up in semi-rural places, and most of my family still lives in rural and semi-rural places, I have always known lots of hunters. And they strike me as being as unlike this Palmer character as I am. Hunting deer and birds – they hunt things they plan to eat (and that seems like a baseline: if you aren’t going to eat it, don’t kill it – not a complete moral system there, but an irreducible core of one); they hunt things where they are part of the ecological system. Deer hunters help control the population, which can cause problems when it gets too big – they have replaced the wolves and puma humans killed off centuries ago… And most of the hunters I know are also part of the ecology in the sense that they hunt where they live, hunt in the same environment. They live with deer year round; they share the ecology; the deer eats their zucchini and they eat the deer…. All this is completely unlike Palmer: he isn’t eating the lions and elephants and bears he’s killing; he isn’t hunting creatures who are plentiful and have no other predators – in fact some of them are quite rare; and he isn’t part of the ecology of the place he’s hunting in. He’s flying halfway around the world and paying someone else thousands of dollars to let him take a shot at something. Oh yeah – the deer hunters I know do their own shooting; they don’t hire a band of locals to take all the risks and do most of the work. There’s simply no level of contempt deep enough for this fucker.

I have re-printed last week’s links here, but have revised a good number of them:

Good Morning! Happy Anniversary ! Dinner and a show are great dates for creating those memories.
I am not going to go near the Lion story, other than to say it is all sad…

Great list of blog links to check through the week. Oh I did have a small conversation with an artist friend about the Turner film. His response was much like my own. Hopefully I will get to my own blog this week or later today. I did have the opportunity to write a review for the Photography exhibition at the Sketch club.

Yes indeed Jeff, such events will always be cherished in the memory zone. Can’t say I blame you for not joining in the Cecil controversy as it certainly has been deafening. I hope to see that intended blog on line soon. And I’d like to see that review for the sketch club. How can I access it? have a great week my friend! Many thanks for the kind words!

I read this morning of some other hunter (s) who have been fingered for killing other animals. The Cecil story has opened up a bag of worms. Nasty business, and the dentist has earned this universal condemnation. Nice piece by Stephen Mullen.

Happy Anniversary Sam. Sorry to hear the show wasn’t ideal, but I’ll sure you and Lucille had a great time.

Congrats on the anniversary, Lucille and Sam! Here’s looking forward to the next 20 . . .

Many thanks for the shoutout for my piece on Whistle Down the Wind but, more importantly, for all the other links you’ve given. There’s some great stuff there that I’ll be perusing here and there during the day.

Thanks so much for those beautiful words John! The link to your magnificent piece on WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND was a joy to post! Yes I agree there are a number of other excellent pieces up there. Have a great week my friend.

The ‘hunters help deer over-population’ is a pure myth created by hunting organizations that issue licenses to increase revenue. It isn’t based in fact, and never has been. What’s strange here is why a non-hunter would parrot it, but it’s been said enough that he probably takes it as fact. But, just common sense would tell you it’s illogical—so the wildlife ecosystem that has been changed by humans that severally impacted the wolf, cougar and puma populations, but somehow didn’t effect deer. WTF? If anything, animals that are herbivores are MORE impacted.

Trust me, people that kill deers aren’t doing helping deers. Which would be the second time common sense should have pointed you in the direction of the fallacy of this claim.

well, the deer hunters like to say the deer would starve without them. I don’t know if it’s strictly true (rather doubt it, actually), but it doesn’t change the situation all that much. Deer are plentiful (to the point of being pests sometimes), there are no (very few, at best) other predators around anymore, and the people hunting them share the land with them. The deer aren’t going anywhere – deer hunting isn’t like cod fishing. That may not really be enough to justify deer hunting, but it’s more than enough to condemn big game hunting in comparison.

Yeah, deer aren’t starving, and nor is killing them doing them any favors. From a popular vegetarian source, “HUNTING TRIGGERS HERD GROWTH. It’s simple science: When part of the animal population is removed, new animals migrate in, or the remaining population rebounds due to food abundance. The deer propagate and the population increases. Since hunters always want more deer to shoot, they kill bucks over does. Pregnant does left with an ample food supply tend to give birth to a higher ratio of fawns. In most states there are 3 does for every buck. In Michigan and Pennsylvania, there are over 20 does per each buck. With less bucks competing for territory, mating becomes the primary focus of the herd.

Starvation? When is the last time you heard a hunter claim to track down the sickest, thinnest deer in an effort to “wean” the herd? Natural selection maintains deer herd size. Starvation is an essential mechanism of natural selection. Without humans, guns, arrows or traps—the weak naturally die off and the strong survive. Some wild areas preserved for hunting alter terrain to favor target animals. For example, intentional forest fires, timber clearing and flooding draw waterfowl. Manipulating nature to favor one species causes the endangerment or extinction of another. According to the Federal Endangered Species Act: “The 2 major causes of extinction are hunting and habitat destruction.”

But, as with Sam, you also condone hunting (in the most limp way possible) so there isn’t much to say. You’ve already come most of the way, I just don’t understand why non-hunters do all this hedging and propping up the status-quo echo chamber arguments that hunters have been saying for decades. They weren’t true then, and they certainly aren’t true now. If you object to hunting like you claim, why not let the hunters speak for themselves? I suppose, yes, ‘in comparison’ big game hunting is ‘worse’ (I don’t think there is a difference, a dead animal killed intentionally is a dead animal killed intentionally), but that’s just because the culture is trending that way at the moment—these conversations have shown me nothing other than people’s willingness to maintain decorum—however savage—if the fringes appear slightly moreso. If only Cecil had been had for lunch, or made into jerky like a deer, we’d see that your argument would be cut in half (by a meat cleaver I’d assume).

Jamie, just want to clarify that I do not in any way condone hunting. For me is the most reprehensible pastime on the earth. I am an animal lover through and through and my house is loaded with them. No matter what animal is hunted I react the same way. The same goes with fishing, which I have never once engaged in. All of this sickening to me.

I too have been shaking my head at the hunting of Cecile the lion Sam. My extended family still hunts occasionally for meat. It is not really cost effective anymore and so it happens less and less. But trophy hunting? Nope!

Well I have a movie for us this week that I am quite taken with. It is GEMMA BOVERY (2014) directed by Anne Fontaine and is centred around a man Martin) who has moved from Paris to a small village in Normandy to take over his father’s bakery. Martin becomes intrigued with the English couple who move in next door and remind him of the characters in Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel Madame Bovary. I shall tell you no more but I know for sure if you haven’t already seen this film you will deeply appreciate its humour, filmography and storytelling.

All the best of the week Sam! I am off for the next 10 days or so to visit family and will check in up my return.

Terrill I hear ya loud and clear and fully agree in regards to this Cecil the Lion fiasco. Thanks so much for that splendid capsule and intriguing premise connected to GEMMA BOVARY, which I am sorry to say I have not seen to this point. I will investigate the film right now. You are quite right that this sort of film has always pulled me in hook, line and sinker. Hope you are having a great time with the family Terrill. Many thanks as always!

Hello Sam and everyone!
First I want to say congratulations on 20 years of marriage! Congrats to both of you!
Second, must say that I agree with you (rating wise) with your review of Court, that I saw in Buenos Aires earlier this year. It even won the main competition there!
So, the films I saw last week:
– A Dog’s Life (1918, Charles Chaplin) **** Maybe the best gag in the history of Chaplin’s career is in this short: he knocks the bad guy out and puts his hands as if it were his to convince the bad guy’s partner to give him money. The rest is good, sometimes a bit average, but that bit just elevates the whole thing.
– Cape Fear (1962, J. Lee Thompson) **** Incredibly performed sort-of procedural that has incredible cinematography and memorable moments and elements that have been parodied and referenced to death, but still maintains some incredible strength and still manages to thrill. I will now watch the Scorsese remake and maybe I’ll have more to say about both these movies and how they relate to each other, but this I’d say is a pretty strong film that bases its entire intrigue in a weak payoff towards the end in a marshy environment that makes it difficult to make sense of what’s going on.
– Cape Fear (1991, Martin Scorsese) ***1/2 Weirdly discomforting but not in a way that would make me admire Scorsese for what he’s doing, though he absolutely directs the shit out of this movie. Seeing this compared to the 60’s film, I must say that the earlier film works better in terms of how much constraint it shows while at the same time it still manages to be edgy and provocative with the events that it portrays, as well as how intelligently it portrays them. Scorsese’s film on the other hand is much more visually provocative than the 60’s movie but it feels more artificial, and De Niro is strangely less scary than Mitchum, even though his acting is more outrageous and one might consider that he does much more with the role than Mitchum, but there’s a quality in the subtle movements of Mitchum (that transpire here in his brief role in this movie). This movie is extraordinary to look at and it shows what Scorsese could do at the time, but at the same time its contrived script is filled with holes and a bit of 90’s progressive elements that thrived to come into the screen. This is still entertaining but at times scary and even disgusting to a fault.
– Hope and Glory (1987, John Boorman) **** Packs a slighty less powerful punch than the Spielberg film of the same year that also chronicles the experiences of a kid as he matures through wartime, but it is nevertheless entertaining and even sometimes funny to watch. There are certain characters that seem a bit bloated with tics and tones that become somewhat annoying to listen to after a while, but in the end it becomes endearing. The sequences that are most entertaining are those that bring out the common things of war as child’s games, as we see shells and bombs being picked up, or the sequence with the German parachute, or when a bomb drops in the river where the last third of the story takes place.
– Ivan the Terrible: Part I (1945, Sergei M. Eisenstein) **** A hawk playing games of deceit and popular love. A long shadow pondering on the existence of God. A wonderful portrait of an emperor, a king, who wants the best for Russia over his own people and those that might help him retain the power. A vision over the convenience of the ploy that might hold him in history, and thus destroying a way of living.
– Survivor (2015, James McTeigue) *** It insults nobody and it barely entertains, as it moves forward it just motions towards the next scene without any kind of slog or stop to it, which frankly makes this generic action/thriller a bit more watchable than most of the crap that comes out in this genre nowadays. Jovovich is always a pleasure to see, and Pierce Brosnan does play the most wanted assassin that is also the clumsiest and least probably actual murderer in a movie in a long time. But here at least he acts better than in any of his Bond films, yes, he is not a good actor, but he has become better with age.
That’s all, have a great week Sam!

Thanks so much for the very kind words Jaimie! They are very much appreciated! Sounds like you saw some great films this past week. I do rate three of them as ***** masterpieces though. A DOG’S LIFE, HOPE AND GLORY and IVAN THE TERRIBLE Part I would get the highest rating. Chaplin’s short is one of the treasures of the silent cinema, Boorman’s 1987 film is wholly exhilarating, and I will be reviewing it for the present countdown, where it finished impressively, and the Russian film is one of world cinema’s most celebrated works. I much appreciate your terrific capsule assessments. Dosen’t sound like SURVIVOR is worth going out of my way for that’s for sure. Personally I rate the original CAPE FEAR with **** 1/2 and the Scorsese ****. Your discussion in defending your own ratings is fantastic!! Hope your upcoming weekend is a very good one. Many thanks as always! 🙂

Happy to read your review. Tom and I celebrated 38 years on the 31st of July. We went out to dinner, which proved difficult as I also got the new teeth mover bite plate to work on straightening out the jaw problem post fall – I may lose some weight with this new repair. Feeling incredibly good these days and have the 12 week follow up to my back surgery check up on Thursday – 4 more weeks of PT to go (2x per week) The high point has been the arrival of 12 new books to review and I just know the FURY and COME AWAY WITH ME are going to be smash hits at the bookstore. They come out in September. None of the Christmas/Holiday sales books have arrived yet for October and November but it looks like a great year and a big finish this year. Thank you for the shout out once again.

I am still hoping for a drive out to the ocean and a sit on the beach this summer, my partner is attempting to retire (wanted to work 2 more years – but ageism is a problem as he has sold his partnership in the firm and the new boys think he is too expensive) He is working random days to finish up.

I have been working on getting letters in support of PLanned Parenthood to congress…what a stupid maneuver. I certainly hope we can get some of this crazy negative threatening stuff stopped – this is such a horrid game and I am amazed at the people who believe these awful ads and films. The election cycle is already too long for me and the ugliness of Lion hunting, and name calling and random shootings – where on earth are we heading? Where is the kindness in all of this?
Thanks for you good reviews and I am loving the childhood film series Thank you all

Congratulations on your 38th Anniversary Pat!! We nearly shared the same day!! 🙂 Great to hear your health has been steadily improving, and that as a result you are feeling much better. That fabulous book delivery will give you cause to focus, and I’m sure you’ll have some wonderful reports at your place! Hope you find some really special book there. The two you mentioned may be just the ones! I hope your wish comes true as far as the intended trip to the ocean, as the summer is moving by quickly. As far as your husband’s retirement, I would think in many ways it will be a relief to him, the misgivings you relate notwithstanding. I am with you 100% on your position re: planned parenthood, and ask the same kind of questions. Thanks for the very kind words my friend. Have a special upcoming weekend!

Sam, once again congrats to you and Lucille on your 20th! The whole thing with Cecil the Lion is sickening. However, I am just as sicken by the vandals in Florida who recently invaded the dentist vacation home spray painting lion killer or some such thing on it. It’s disgusting the way people act. Low class in every way.

Okay, enough of that. On to the more pleasant task of movies. Saw the following…
un
Mr. Holmes (***1/2) Ian McKellan’s sharp performance as senior Sherlock is engaging and reason enough to see this.

Destination Murder (**) Low budget noir that keeps you engaged enough due to some continuing twist in the story. That said, this is really nothing special.

The Wrecking Crew (****) Engaging doc. about the group of west coast session musicians who played on just about every hit record from the 60’s and 70’s. Sinatra, both Frank and Nancy, The Bryds, The Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher, Herb Albert and so many others.

Re-watched The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (***1/2) Above average low budget gangster flick from the early 60’s. Cheap sets, but its better than you would think.

Thanks so much for the very kind words. Yes you bring an excellent counterpoint out concerning the vandals. There is no way one can defend such reprehensible behavior, regardless of how the matter has inflamed passions and has gone viral. Typically such actions greatly exacerbate an already bad situation. I quite agree with you on the quality of Ian McKellan’s performance, even if I found the film only intermittently interesting. I have seen THE WRECKING CREW, but it does sound like something I’d really like a lot. I pretty much agree with you on THE RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND, but haven’t seen DESTINATION MURDER or can’t immediately recall it. Have a great upcoming weekend my friend.

Sam, looks like you continue to take in some very interesting stuff at home. I have never seen No Greater Glory nor Valerie and Her Week of Wonders but you have definitely interested me in seeking out both.

Still way too quiet here on the viewing front but I did manage to finally see Hong Sang-soo’s In Another Country which I quite enjoyed. I have long been a fan of the South Korean filmmaker and Huppert so it was a collaboration that easily won me over. Hoping to soon get back to a more voracious viewing routine. And hoping all is great there!

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Wonders in the Dark is a blog dedicated to the arts, especially film, theatre and music. An open forum is highly encouraged, as the site proctors are usually ready and able to engage with ongoing conversation.